TEMPTATION

TEMPTATION; Fruit Soups in Fresh Harmonies

By DIANE WEINTRAUB POHL

Published: July 30, 2003

IF the unexpected is a key to seduction, then Gabriel Kreuther is a master flirt. Mr. Kreuther, the executive chef of Atelier in the Ritz-Carlton on Central Park South, has concocted jewel-toned chilled fruit soups whose colors, flavors and textures parry and fuse in artful combinations.

The kitchen creates at least three types daily. There's a gossamer peach panna cotta with wild blueberry sorbet, and a mango purée with passion fruit and banana sorbet. In another soup, peppermint, vanilla, lime and yogurt sorbet coax rhubarb into bracing submission. An icy riff on tom ka gai, the Thai soup, has coconut milk simmered with lemon grass and kaffir lime, then spiked with tapioca pearls and pineapple sorbet.

''The soups are always changing,'' Mr. Kreuther said. ''It depends on what herbs and fruits are available.'' Cantaloupe and watermelon star in his latest soup, left. They are puréed with a sugar syrup, and then infused with lemon verbena and mint.

Grapefruit, luckily, is available year round, since it makes one of the restaurant's most popular soups: a thin gelée of pink grapefruit laced with orange blossom water, lavender and honey, topped with a cloud of fromage blanc and candied lavender.

In all the soups, citrus is the common denominator.

''The fruit needs it, because otherwise it's too sweet and you get tired of it,'' Mr. Kreuther said. ''The acid in the citrus balances out the sugar and makes it refreshing.'' DIANE WEINTRAUB POHL

A single chilled soup with madeleines is available as dessert on the $72 prix fixe menu at Atelier in the Ritz-Carlton, 50 Central Park South; (212) 521-6125. A predessert trio of three soups in shot glasses is included on the $95 and $128 tasting menus.